Techniques that seek to counterfeit, forge or otherwise fraudulently produce many types of products constantly increase in their sophistication and accuracy. As a result, there is a need for authentication systems and methods that are economically feasible and relatively simply to implement by legitimate manufacturers, but that also create a significant cost barrier to potential pirates.
Many current systems utilize labels or other physical marking methods that employ machine-readable codes in a visual format (e.g., a barcode) or other distinguishing physical characteristics (e.g., holograms) to identify an item as being genuine. However, most of these methods utilize markings that are not unique to each product. Accordingly, if a pirate manages to duplicate a legitimate product marking, the pirate may mark multiple counterfeit products with a single duplicated marking and thus give the counterfeit products the appearance of being genuine.
Other product marking systems have managed to create fairly unique product marking codes such that individual goods may be marked with significantly unique indicia of authenticity. Some of these systems use a certificate of authenticity (COA) to mark each genuine product. Each product may later be authenticated by examining the COA to determine if the COA is genuine or has been counterfeited by a pirate. However, most of these systems require sophisticated authentication or verification tools that are difficult or impossible to utilize in a field setting such as a warehouse, retail store, or the hold of a ship.